What are some dry periods you can think about within the career of those who are seen as legends?

I wouldn't mention their complete fall off, but just a period that they lost fans, their growth stunted, or folks thought they fell off before they came back strong.

The obvious mention for Hip Hop would be Dre during the 96-98 "Aftermath Presents" period.

"Walking With a Panther" is the most infamous one, though it's kinda overstated. It had some shitty love songs, but is otherwise a good album. Regardless, "Mama Said Knock You Out" was a pretty definitive comeback, even though "Walking" only dropped a year before.

His fall off with "14 Shots..." is kind of ignored, but that album was not well-received critically or sales-wise. Then he had to scrap the first version of "Mr. Smith" before almost completely revising it and "coming back" again with Doin' It and the Loungin' remix.

...but there was clearly 2 comebacks in his career ...he could have had a 3rd comeback if he had an album of quality songs to go along with "Ill Bomb"

I remember it getting lots of good reviews, LL's "hardest" album in years, etc. It was just ok. It had some gems and was better than Phenomenon. But it wasn't anywhere near a great album.

That was a HUGE hit.


os·ti·na·to
/ˌästəˈnädō/
noun
a continually repeated musical phrase or rhythm

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It's actually way better and more interesting than most of his 80s stuff that came after it.

It's certainly better than garbage like Old Ways and Landing on Water. That stuff is just unlistenable dreck at this point. At least Trans has some life to it.

And besides, any album with 'Like an Inca' (arguably his last truly great song for many, many years) is at least at footnote status.


os·ti·na·to
/ˌästəˈnädō/
noun
a continually repeated musical phrase or rhythm

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os·ti·na·to
/ˌästəˈnädō/
noun
a continually repeated musical phrase or rhythm

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They also had a bunch of comebacks

Reiteration: gotta be good in the first place.


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/ˌästəˈnädō/
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.

Between Amplified ('99) & The Renaissance ('08)
and between The Renaissance & We Got it From Here...Thank You For Your Service ('16)

I wouldn't ever have said he fell off, but I was giving up hope of ever hearing new material (outside of the bootlegs of Kamal The Abstract & Open/Live at The Renaissance).

. . .quality of output and flat out lack of output.

Think it's pretty safe to say the quality of his work never went down. The amount which he released, however, did. But, that's not really a demerit on him, I'd say.


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/ˌästəˈnädō/
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a continually repeated musical phrase or rhythm

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Granted, part of it wasn't his fault as his double CD, the original I AM was bootlegged heavily (not to mention his mother's health) and he had to rework or scrap a lot of material - but the talk then was that he fell off HARD. Weak albums, shaky concepts, bad shows. I think more than the beef with Jay, people were just glad that Nas was back and living up to his promise on Stillmatic. And then following up with what he was always capable of with Lost Tapes. I'd argue he's had a better career in his mid-late 30s than he did post Illmatic.

Maybe Premier's period between Moment of Truth and Phyme?

Or Mos Def from Black on Both Sides to The Ecstatic?

And I'm not a fan of his, but maybe DOOM's period before Madvillan?

>Maybe Premier's period between Moment of Truth and Phyme?
>
>Or Mos Def from Black on Both Sides to The Ecstatic?
>
>And I'm not a fan of his, but maybe DOOM's period before
>Madvillan?
>

DOOM's period before MAdvillain is a mix of classics and great records, so no.

After Aaliyah's passing in August '01, Tim's well ran dry creatively (and commercially, for the MOST part) but things picked up again on both fronts BIG TIME in the summer '06 starting with Nelly Furtado's Loose and ascended even higher with Timberlake's FutureSex/LoveSounds that fall.

I think im the only person who liked Indecent Propsal and Under Construction part 2...he dropped that fire Ms Jade album tho..

>After Aaliyah's passing in August '01, Tim's well ran dry
>creatively (and commercially, for the MOST part) but things
>picked up again on both fronts BIG TIME in the summer '06
>starting with Nelly Furtado's Loose and ascended even higher
>with Timberlake's FutureSex/LoveSounds that fall.

Hola Hovito and Dirt Off Your Shoulder for Jay, half of the first Justin Timberlake album, the Tweet album, Brandy's Afrodisiac album, etc.

plus Miss E...So Addictive, plus Dirt Off Your Shoulders, Hola Hovito, The Bounce (Blueprint 2)

there wasn't really a dry spell

Those Jay BP2 cuts were ass, homie.

.

Ummm...

Tweet - Oh My
Justin TImberlake -Cry Me A River
Missy - Work It, Im Really Hot
Jay-z - Dirt Off Your Shoulder
Lil Kim - Jump Off
Brandy - Aphrodisiac
Cee-lo - Ill Be Around
LL Cool J _ Headsprung
Game _ Put You On Game

now to be fair... he also had a lot of failures during this time with Beat Club so thats maybe why you would think that.. and The Neptunes were on the top of the world.. but the Hits never stopped

fell off around 80/81 and caught a 2nd wind
in 90 after appearing on Quincy's Secret Garden
in 89. His next album did better than any of
his albums in a long time, and his album after
that went to #1.

he was still a good rapper of course but the music he was putting his name on was loco bland.


~~~~~~~~~
"This is the streets, and I am the trap." � Jay Bilas
http://www.popmatters.com/pm/archive/contributor/517
Hip Hop Handbook: http://tinyurl.com/ll4kzz

and made a bunch of boring music until they got the chance to get the band back together


~~~~~~~~~
"This is the streets, and I am the trap." � Jay Bilas
http://www.popmatters.com/pm/archive/contributor/517
Hip Hop Handbook: http://tinyurl.com/ll4kzz

both of them just had a lot of bad ideas, but they got decent ghost producers (or stopped producing altogether) and found their niches and both make perfectly fine, enjoyable music now.


~~~~~~~~~
"This is the streets, and I am the trap." � Jay Bilas
http://www.popmatters.com/pm/archive/contributor/517
Hip Hop Handbook: http://tinyurl.com/ll4kzz

~~~~~~~~~
"This is the streets, and I am the trap." � Jay Bilas
http://www.popmatters.com/pm/archive/contributor/517
Hip Hop Handbook: http://tinyurl.com/ll4kzz

Prince 88- onward IMO

Bee Gees Mid 80's onward

Madonna 97-now

Smokey Robinson 90's onward

Diana Ross 90's onward

R.Kelly 2011-now though i like the CHristmas album

Barry WHite 80's

Curtis Mayfield 80's

Ice Cube 99-now

LL COOL J 96-now

van halen 97 -now

el debarge 95-now

aretha franklin 99-now

babyface 99-now

george michael 99-now

rick james 90's onward though i dug urban rapisody

marvin gaye 79-82

And 2010 - present, lol

.

after that tho....

The Doggfather and that first No Limit album were disappointments.

Once Top Dogg came out and he was working with Dre again, and then a few months later 2001 came out, it felt like Snoop was back.

Off Chronic, Doggystyle, Murder was the case, and even Dogg Food...so for a minute, we still rocked with him, even when we knew it wasn't bangin as much.

But looking back, Doggfather was a 7/10....which is bad following a 10/10, but it's decent-ok. That first NL album is like a 5/10 to me....his worst by FAAAAAAAAAAAAAR. And even that had some bangers!

I don't think their popularity or mystique suffered much, but I feel like enough time has passed for even the most staunch Radiohead fans to admit that album wasn't really hitting.

"In Bloom" is a great opener, the next three tracks are kinda stale, but 5-8 is just heat after heat. It's also a really good summary of all the sounds of their career, you can hear bits of everything in that album.

It's more than a little reserved, but I like that about it.

~~~~~~~~~
"This is the streets, and I am the trap." � Jay Bilas
http://www.popmatters.com/pm/archive/contributor/517
Hip Hop Handbook: http://tinyurl.com/ll4kzz

But, I totally get that the consensus now is that it was "just okay."

In general, I'd recommend the "Live From the Basement" session over the proper album.


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/ˌästəˈnädō/
noun
a continually repeated musical phrase or rhythm

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>I'd recommend the "Live From the Basement" session
>over the proper album.

100% unequivocal co-sign.

Many people would say his first brief, moderately dry spell came after John Wesley Harding ('67) and lasted until he dropped Blood on the Tracks in ('75). Following the blinding brilliance of his run up to that point, the albums he released in that timeframe were pretty pedestrian, even if the period produced some undeniably classic songs (Forever Young, Lay Lady Lay, Knocking on Heaven's Door).

(With that said, even though Nashville Skyline ('69) is slight by Dylan's standards, I fucking love that album.)

I happen to be a big fan of Desire ('76) and love some of the songs on Street Legal ('78), but after that he had a pretty rough stretch for almost 20 years until the much lauded Time Out of Mind in '97.

I will admit to not being super well-versed in his 80 and 90s material, though, mostly because the majority of what I've heard from then has been tough to listen to. I'm sure there are some gems sprinkled throughout, but it seems like it'd be a chore to find them...

His first two solo albums were widely heralded, (mostly) deservedly so, but his solo output falls off a cliff after that.

Sometime in New York City ('72) was a commercially and critically unsuccessful attempt to make "edgy" protest music. Problem was the songs weren't any good. ("Woman is the N-gger of the World," anyone?)

It's obvious that he wanted to bounce back and move units on Mind Games ('73) because it's a complete about-face from SINYC. Commercial songs, slick production, less politics. Again, problem was the songs weren't any good. (I'm being a little more facetious this time. There are some good songs on here, but like most of his solo output, it suffers from unimaginative arrangements and pervasive blandness. Overall it's a mediocre and uneven album.)

Walls and Bridges ('74) is almost unlistenable to me. So bland.

Rock and Roll ('75) is a bunch of 50's rock and roll covers. Some people like it.

Double Fantasy ('80) was seen as a comeback of sorts, featuring undeniably his best songs in nearly 10 years. I still think it leaves something to be desired, but at least it's worthy of having his name attached to it. Wish he actually got back with McCartney for this album like he was planning on doing for his next one. They both still had great music in them, and it could've been a truly great record.